OVERVIEWNearly 3,000 engineers, neurologists, physicists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and statisticians from all over the world gathered for the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) — dedicated to “using neuroimaging to discover the organization of the human brain.”

CHALLENGESHeading into the meeting, Kayla Stidger, OHBM’s director of meetings and events, was concerned that attendees would be lured away from the program by Honolulu’s abundant charms. (Read our Pre Con profile of OHBM 2015.) And to some extent, her fears were borne out. “We did notice a significant decrease of attendance during the designated exhibit and poster time,” Stidger said.

INITIATIVESA large part of OHBM’s decision to hold its meeting in Hawaii was to foster global engagement — following on the success of OHBM 2014, which was held in Germany and drew a sizable European contingent. This year, OHBM saw attendance from the United States nearly double, along with a general increase in the number of delegates from Asia — especially Japan — and Australia.

Convene’s Pre-Con/Post-Con series asks meeting planners about their challenges and how they intend to address them (Pre-Con), and then circles back around after the meeting has occurred (Post-Con) to see how well they worked out.